


You Will Stab Your Eye Out!

by TeamGwenee



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Christmas, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:01:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28215885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamGwenee/pseuds/TeamGwenee
Summary: Two Christmases early on in Brienne and Jaime's friendship.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 15
Kudos: 62





	You Will Stab Your Eye Out!

The Tarths were new to the street. Joanna had met Selwyn Tarth a couple of times, out and about, and thought him a very friendly man. When she found out he had a little girl, about the same age as Joanna’s twins, there had been plans of getting the children together some time after Christmas.

Said meeting actually came a little earlier.

Christmas Day, to be precise. Christmas Day in A&E, oh the delight.

Joanna had her arm wrapped around Jaime, the weary mother oscillating between comforting and chiding.

“You really must be more careful, Jaime,” she said, not too harshly. She couldn’t be too hard on her baby boy, not when he was hurt. Not when the redness of his eye should already have taught him a lesson. Especially when Tywin was the one truly at fault.

Jaime had desperately wanted a mechanised jousting set for Christmas, a cunning and intricate device with clockwork horses and jousters running up and down a brightly painted arena. For weeks, Jaime had ragged on about the Ser Arthur Dayne Mechanical Jousting Set. Tywin; usually the least indulgent of his parents, had granted it to him on the grounds that ‘a boy is never too young to start understanding the intricacies of combat’.

Joanna sighed, running a hand through Jaime’s golden hair.

“I knew getting you that jousting set was a mistake,” a man’s voice said ruefully. “You could have poked your eye out!”

Joanna looked up to see Selwyn Tarth’s brawny body hunch down in the small waiting room seats, a blue-eyed girl who seemed like to take after him in height and hair held tight to his chest. Joanna watched him bounce the girl up and down on his knee, as she clutched a bag of frozen peas to her eye.

Joanna caught his eye, exchanging a wry smile.

“Jousting set?” Selwyn asked dryly. “I knew it was a goof, but she was so desperate. And you should have seen her face when she opened it this morning.”

Joanna chuckled, squeezing Jaime’s shoulder. “I’m exactly the same. Birds of a feather it seems, all four of us. We really should get these two together for a playdate, seeing as they clearly have so much in common.” She hesitated, glancing uncertainty at her son. “Or else we had better keep them apart. We don’t want any more blood and tears.”

As predicted, Brienne and Jaime became the most barbed and best of friends, appearing to all onlookers as the greatest of enemies for all the time they spent fighting. With hands, legs, words and teeth.

Selwyn was delighted. When he and his daughter moved from their crumbling estate, he was worried that his shy baby girl would struggle to make friends. Especially when she took leaving their home so hard. After living your life in a literal castle, albeit an uncomfortable castle with dodgy plumbing and frozen drains in winter, it was hard to see your home turned into a museum and to move to a normal house in the suburban Wintertown.

The transition was eased somewhat, by Selwyn allowing Brienne to take a keepsake from the castle armoury. Ser Duncan the Tall’s shield, a national treasure that should have the glory of any museum, was hung up on Brienne’s bedroom wall, a garland of fairy lights strung all around.

“So my book said it had to be midnight,” Jaime explained as Brienne carefully lifted the shield from her wall. “Midnight, Christmas Eve. That’s when the veil between life and death lifts and the dead walk the earth”

Brienne reverently laid the shield down in the centre of her bedroom floor. She strained her ears for her dad’s footsteps. It had taken some heavy persuasion for their parents to allow this sleepover, many weeks of joint campaigning to get them to agree. That Selwyn and Joanna had already confirmed plans for the family to meet up the next day anyway smoothed the way.

Jaime was particularly pleased with these arrangements. In his family, they waited until after lunch to open presents. The Tarths opened gifts as soon as they awoke. And Selwyn’s character being what it was, Jaime could be sure of two present opening origies.

But the real excitement was the plans for midnight.

Brienne and Jaime were meant to be asleep by twelve, so they had to go about their dark business quietly.

They weren’t allowed candles,so they made the circle up of Brienne’s bedside lamp and a couple of torches.

“Do you think it will work?” Brienne asked, her voice hushed and taut with excitement.

Jaime looked out of the window. It was a full moon. A sign, Jaime had been certain.

“The moon is just right, look,” he said, gesturing to the silver stream of light pouring through Brienne’s window, directly onto the shield. “And like I said, midnight Christmas Eve is when the spirits are up.”

“And it’s us two here tonight,” Brienne added eagerly. “No one loves knights more than us. Ser Duncan will have to come.” She switched on the final torchlight, and Jaime nodded decisively. They had a full circle now.

“That’s enough,” he informed Brienne, reaching out for her hand.  
They rested their eyes on Brienne’s bedroom clock, their breathing becoming shallow and short as the midnight hour steadily approached.

“One minute left,” Jaime whispered under his breath. “Thirty seconds, ten seconds. Five-”

“What are you two still doing up?”

Brienne and Jaime started, scrambling back as the door swung open. With a yelp and a gasp, they panted in relief as Selwyn switched the overhead light on, breaking into peals of laughter.

Selwyn smiled down jovially on the pair. “Now what are you two rascals up to?” he asked, taking in their sheepish smiles and sparkling eyes.

“Oh nothing,” Brienne said innocently. “Just playing.”

“Really now?” Selwyn asked, raising his eyebrow. “Just playing?”

Brienne and Jaime exchanged sly smiles, Brienne slapping her hand over her mouth to keep from giggling once more.

“Playing what? You two seem awfully excited for ‘just playing’.”

“We’re just...you know,” Jaime said blithely, “Simply having a wonderful Christmas time!”

**Author's Note:**

> The second half is based of this tweet. https://twitter.com/theryangeorge/status/1204821475800363008


End file.
